Our Power Will No Longer Be Ignored Because of Our Age

“Our Power Will No Longer Be Ignored Because of Our Age”

On the morning of March 14th, Juntos along with the Philadelphia Student Union organized the “Student Vision for School Safety March.” Thousands of young people across the city of Philadelphia walked out of their schools and put forward their vision for true school safety means. Juntos youth member, City Perez-Nieto, a Junior at Science Leadership Academy adressed the crowd with the following words.

Speech cowritten by Cindy Perez-Nieto & Odalys Peralta of Juntos

“Good morning everyone my name is Cindy Perez-Nieto. I am a junior at Science Leadership Academy @ Beeber and a youth leader at Juntos.

I want to start off by saying that we stand in solidarity with the young people in Florida, who have been protesting and spreading the word about the importance of school safety after the tragic shooting at Stoneman Douglas High.

Now, this issue has been going on for too long. It has come to point where this issue has been normalized, we aren’t surprised anymore when we hear about another mass shooting. We now have gun rights activists trying to arm our teachers but we know more guns is not the solution. I honestly don’t know what I’m more afraid of, if there could occur another school shooting or knowing that my teachers might be armed in school. As a student, I believe that arming our teachers is not the right solution.

With so many regulations our schools already feel like prisons. Schools are supposed to be a place of learning and we need to feel safe in order to learn. Having more police officers in schools is not helping with our learning so a first step it to stop investing in cops and start investing in infrastructure such as counselors to help better our education.

Our priority should be on improving our academic level. We need to face the fact that gun violence isn’t the only issue in our schools but the criminalization of schools are also important. The underfunded schools in our city are largely populated by students of color, these schools have metal detector, cops, but don’t have counselors, nurses, or teachers

What we’re seeing out in the streets today is a clear example of what real power looks. School safety has been an issue for many years and for many years politicians have stood by and done nothing. Today, we the young people of this country are saying “enough is enough!” It’s time for action and it’s time for change.

Now we all know that the School District had told many of us that we could only participate in a 17-minute walk-out in honor the victims of tragic Florida shooting. However, we, the students of Philadelphia, know that the issues of school safety extend past Florida.

For many of us, our schools have not felt safe for as long as we can remember. For us to have safe schools we must think broader than only gun regulations.

Safe schools mean schools with more counselors than cops.

Safe schools mean schools with equal funding.

Safe schools mean schools where we don’t fear the presence of ICE.

This is why those 17 minutes were not enough for us if we wanted to bring attention to these issues and make an impact in our community and schools. This is why I am here today, to make my voice be heard so that the voice of many youth out there is also heard. Our power will no longer be ignored because of our age.

We are going to make a change in our community and this change starts with us, the youth. Thank you.”